With 46 votes in favour, 4 against and 7 abstentions, MEPs on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) approved, on Thursday 28 April, the draft consultative report by Aurore Lalucq (S&D, France) on the European Commission’s proposal to implement the OECD agreement on minimum taxation of multinationals.
“This agreement is not perfect. We would, for example, have liked to have a higher tax rate. But it is the result of a compromise. And today, the urgency is for a deal to be reached in the Ecofin, for a rapid implementation”, stressed Ms Lalucq in a statement.
“We ask the most reluctant states, like Poland, to stop blocking the decision at European level”, the Czech MEP, Luděk Niedermayer and EPP group negotiator, said in a statement. Together with his German counterpart, Markus Ferber, he criticised the amendments of the other groups (see EUROPE 12935/18). “We could have been even faster if the other political groups in the European Parliament would understand that this is not a place for proposing material changes to the OECD/G20-based proposal”, he said.
The MEPs did approve the introduction of a clause that provides for the revision of the annual income threshold above which a multinational company would be subject to the minimum tax rate.
The text will be discussed again in the Ecofin Council on Tuesday 24 May. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)